Wowhead's Patch 5.0.4 Guide

5.0.4 is live today and we have an extensive guide to everything new! While there's no new raids or gear in this patch, many things will keep you busy. Class abilities, talent trees, and glyphs have been drastically changed, so it's good there's a month before Mists of Pandaria to familiarize yourself with the changes! If achievement-hunting is more your thing, all achievements are account-wide in 5.0.4, as well as many mounts, pets, and titles.

Warchief Garrosh, obsessed with assuring the Horde’s supremacy over Kalimdor, launches an all-out attack against Jaina's island home of Theramore. Though valiant Alliance defenders rush to repel the sudden onslaught, they’ll soon find themselves unprepared for the terrible scope of Garrosh's true plans…

This Scenario will become available in the weeks leading up to the launch of Mists of Pandaria on September 25.

AOE Looting

Area of effect looting comes to World of Warcraft with this patch. After killing a group of enemies in close proximity, when you loot one of their corpses, the loot window will include items from all of the nearby corpses for which you have loot rights.

In some zones, players are now able to form a group with other players from a select pool of realms.

When a player is in a zone that is set as a “cross-realm zone”, in addition to seeing other players from their native realm, they’ll also seamlessly see (and be able to play with) players from other realms.

Players will always be able to group and quest as they normally would with players from their native realm.

This functionality will be enabled for a limited number of realms at first, and will be granted to additional realms as we near the release of Mists of Pandaria.

Classes: General

All classes have been updated with a new talent system, improved abilities, and spells (accessible throughout levels 1-85). Your character's talents have been reset.

Many old talents have been converted to specialization abilities.

Druids now have access to a fourth class specialization: Guardian.

New spells are now learned automatically. Class trainers are only needed to change talents, glyphs, class specialization, or to utilize the dual specialization feature.

All characters now take 40% less damage from other players.

Currency Conversion

Valor points have been converted to Justice points, and Conquest points have been converted to Honor points.

Neither of the resultant currencies (Justice and Honor) have an enforced hard-cap at this time.

Players are no longer able to earn Valor or Conquest points (bosses drop Justice, and arenas are closed).

Items formerly purchasable for Valor/Conquest are available for Justice/Honor.

Items

Spell Penetration has been replaced by PvP Power on existing items.

Head enchants removed

Enchants that modify the gear in your head slot have been removed from the game. This includes older head enchants of every type.

Relics, ranged, and thrown items

The slot in which ranged, relics, and thrown items were previously equipped has been removed. All weapons should now be equipped in the weapon slot.

Ranged weapons, including wands, have been adjusted to be more powerful.

Ranged weapons no longer have a minimum range.

Professions

The glyph system has been updated. Many class glyphs have been added, altered, or moved to different glyph types.

Prime glyphs have been removed.

Chef’s Award and Dalaran Cooking Award have been removed. Existing awards have been converted to Epicurean’s Award.

Quests

The cap for daily quests has been removed.

There is no longer a displayed count of daily quests completed.

User Interface

There is a new user interface for your mounts and pets.

Character creation screens have been updated.

Buffs have been consolidated in the UI.

New roll results frame added. This new feature can be accessed by clicking the word "[Loot]" in chat, or by typing "/loot".

The PvE queue frames have been unified. You can now queue for dungeons, raids, and other queue-able content in one handy place.

Vendors now offer item filtering.

Spellbooks have been updated to reflect changes to core abilities, and now include a brief overview of specializations.

The Dungeon Journal has been expanded with information on all pre-Cataclysm encounters.

A new help system has been added to many frames. You can toggle this on and off by clicking the "i" button in the upper left corner of the frame.

Mac

Mac OS X 10.5 is no longer supported.

Added full support for Retina displays.

Added support for game resolutions that match Mac screen aspect ratios.

Switching between Windowed and Fullscreen display modes should be faster.

A “Help” menu has been added, so that players can quickly navigate to support pages.

A menu item that allows players to copy system information to the Clipboard has been added.

A menu item that reveals various game files and folders in Finder has been added.

New Scenario: Fall of Theramore

In 5.0.4, Garrosh Hellscream will launch a full-out attack on Theramore and Jaina Proudmoore, determined to conquer all of Kalimdor. Your character will take part in this dramatic conflict that has tragic consequences for all.

From September 18-24 only, players can queue up at 85 for Theramore's Fall, a new scenario. The scenario can be later completed by level 90 players in Mists of Pandaria. The Theramore event will not begin on patch day, August 28th, in contrast to the staggered pre-Cataclysm event.

New Talent System and Class Changes

In 5.0.4, the talent system will be radically changed. Instead of 31-point talent trees, each player gets 6 talents total. There is an option between three talent choices every 15 levels.

Many talents that were considered mandatory have been added into class specializations.

You do not need to visit a trainer to learn new abilities: you only visit them to change talents and specializations.

With so many new abilities introduced this patch, Blizzard took the time to add amazing spell graphics for each class. Check out our pastpreviews.

We've had a Mists of Pandaria talent calcuator up and running hours after the overhaul was first announced at BlizzCon 2011. Constantly updated, it reflects all the new talents, class abilities, specializations, and glyphs. Check it out!

We've provided links below to our talent calculator, Blizzard's summaries of class changes, as well as detailed guides to all specs our friends at Noxxic have put together.

Each specialization learns a passive effect that should cause that specialization to favor the corresponding Presence for general use.

Necrotic Strike, as well as the new talent , both cost a Death Rune, meaning that they can only be used when one of your runes has been transformed to Death.Check out our Wowhead class preview with armor models, screenshots of spell effects, and more.

Poisons are divided into two categories, Lethal (Deadly or Wound Poison) and Non-Lethal (the rest), and you may have one poison of each type active at once.

Many abilities that used to be restricted to a single specialization are now talents and available to all specializations; so you can have a Shadowstepping Combat rogue or an Assassination rogue with Cheat Death.

Dagger speeds have been normalized such that the niche of the “fast dagger” intended for the off-hand no longer exists. Any dagger should be fine to equip in either hand.

Totems no longer provide long-term buffs. Some of the old passive effects are now innately provided by the shaman.

Totems instead have short-term situational benefits. In light of this the totem multidrop UI has been removed, though all totem spells are now sorted under draggable elemental flyouts in the Spellbook.

Stances also now share a single action bar, rather than changing your action bar, and abilities are no longer restricted by stance.

In addition, the benefits of the stances have changed considerably, with allowing the warrior to gain some Rage from taking damage, making the warrior gain additional Rage from dealing damage, and Defensive Stance focused on survivability.

Inscription and Glyph Changes

Prime Glyphs are removed. Many of these abilities have been turned into class abilities.

Your character now can have 6 glyphs at once, not 9.

Minor glyphs in 5.0.4 are designed to be lighthearted and provide your character with fun vanity effects. Blizzard felt minor glyphs were too dull and wanted to do something different with them. Check out our past visual previews of the new cosmetic glyphs.

Many old glyphs will be changed in 5.0.4 and your old glyphs will convert into new ones. Others, like monk glyphs, will require 525+ Inscription to learn.

Many professions do not have changes, but Inscription has a few low-level weapon plans in addition to all the glyph changes. We suspect that this will help transmog more than leveling players, as the weapons use rare models.Key to the Planes (Recipe: Key to the Planes). First seen on Chief Engineer Lorthander.

New Buffs and Debuffs

As part of the talent tree redesign and ability revamp, buffs and debuffs were reworked so all classes had a relatively equal amount of raid utility. Be sure to check out Zarac's guide, Mists of Pandaria Buffs and Debuffs, for a well-organized list.

Account-wide Achievements

Most pets, mounts, titles, and achievements will be account-wide in 5.0.4. This will greatly help players who have meta achievements in progress across several characters. If an achievement can be completed across multiple characters, like a meta-achievement, it will have a blue bar in the heading.

A title will be acquired on an alt when they reach the required level to obtain it. It looks like realm-first titles will be account-wide too!

Achievements will be shared at the battle.net level. This means that characters on linked accounts will share these items and accomplishments.

Expensive and multi-seat mounts were originally intended to be character-specific. They were changed during beta to be account-wide, so all characters can benefit from your Reins of the Grand Expedition Yak. Full list here.

Item Changes

The ranged weapon slot is removed. There is simply just a weapon slot. Players will have the option of equipping, for example, a staff or a wand, a bow or a polearm. As a result of this change, ranged weapons will receive stat boosts to be more powerful and minimum range has been removed. However, ranged attacks can now be dodged.

Expertise will convert to spell hit for casters.

Spell penetration is being removed.

Dungeon Changes

Three leveling dungeons were revamped in the latest patch: Ragefire Chasm, Scholomance, and Scarlet Monastery. While sadly some items like Tabard of the Scarlet Crusade aren't available anymore, there's updated stories and new achievements to farm. Check out the links to see video and screenshot previews, the Encounter Journals, new loot, and what's exactly changed!

Heroic versions of Scarlet Monastery and Scholomance will be available in Mists of Pandaria.

General Changes

AoE Looting: This will greatly speed things up in 5.0.4! You will be able to loot all nearby mobs by clicking on one corpse. For Wowhead Client users, don't worry, we'll be able to accurately display drop locations and percentages still.

Battle Tag Support: Battle Tags are similar to Real ID, but without your name attached. You can invite, add, and remove friends with Battle Tags just like you do with Real ID, but with more privacy. This system was first introduced in Diablo III.

All Races Available in 5.0.4: Players do not need to purchase a specific expansion to unlock several races, all races are available with Classic WoW. For example, you do not need Cataclysm to roll a Goblin. Read the blue post here.

Blacklisted Battlegrounds: Players can blacklisted two battlegrounds at a time--removing them from their random queue. Simply click the thumbs-down icon by a battleground's name and you won't have to deal with your least favorite map ever again.

11th Character Slot: This is the first expansion where the number of characters per realm has been increased to 11.

Cross-Realm Queueing: Players in under populated areas of the world such as low level zones will be grouped together within a select pool of realms. The natural flow of questing will be preserved but the zones will end up less sparse. For highly-populated areas like major cities, this won't be in effect. Check out the blue post describing the changes in more detail.

UI Changes

Spellbooks have been greatly changed: all abilities show up in tabs organized by spec, regardless of your characters chosen dual specs. In addition, there is a spellbook page talking about core abilities and changes for your class. New help prompts have been added to many portions of the spellbook, for users unused to the new format.

Pets and Mounts now have their own interface.

Buffs at the top right of your screen have been consolidated. Clicking on the buff icon will expand the window to show what buff types you have.

The Dungeon Journal now includes pre-Cataclysm encounters.

Vendors now filter items by class.

Helpful information toggle buttons have been added at the top left of window panes. Click on the "i" to have more information pop up.

A new roll results frame will provide more detailed information. Type /loot in game to see more information.

Character Creation Screen

New characters will show up on the preview screen in sample sets of high-level gear, instead of level 1 greys.

A bar has been added to the right side of the screen that allows you to visually browse all the customization options, such as hair and skin color.

The character creation screen has been changed to reflect the faction conflict instead of your race's homeland.

Comments

Comment by MickMaster01

I have a problem. I'm leveling a new goblin shaman, but I'm not gaining any mana. He's level 8 now and still has only 40 mana. Is there something I need to do to get more mana?

Comment by wrlwnd

on 2012-08-30T08:46:01-05:00

I have a problem. I'm leveling a new goblin shaman, but I'm not gaining any mana. He's level 8 now and still has only 40 mana. Is there something I need to do to get more mana?

One of the changes made is that mana users now have a mana cap. I have not seen actual numbers yet for what the caps are, but I noted on the spriest that I am leveling at 59 with quest greens and blues I dropped from around 4900 to 4200.

Comment by MickMaster01

on 2012-08-30T09:53:35-05:00

I have a problem. I'm leveling a new goblin shaman, but I'm not gaining any mana. He's level 8 now and still has only 40 mana. Is there something I need to do to get more mana?

One of the changes made is that mana users now have a mana cap. I have not seen actual numbers yet for what the caps are, but I noted on the spriest that I am leveling at 59 with quest greens and blues I dropped from around 4900 to 4200.

I know, but I'm gaining nothing by leveling, and I know that intellect no longer effects mana, so how DO I get more?

Comment by wrlwnd

on 2012-08-30T10:03:02-05:00

I have a problem. I'm leveling a new goblin shaman, but I'm not gaining any mana. He's level 8 now and still has only 40 mana. Is there something I need to do to get more mana?

One of the changes made is that mana users now have a mana cap. I have not seen actual numbers yet for what the caps are, but I noted on the spriest that I am leveling at 59 with quest greens and blues I dropped from around 4900 to 4200.

I know, but I'm gaining nothing by leveling, and I know that intellect no longer effects mana, so how DO I get more?

I think we are going to have to see the results of various people leveling and reporting the results. I know when I grabbed some time this morning before heading here to work I popped 60, but did not check the mana numbers. I will look at that when I get home and can see.

Comment by Adamsm

on 2012-08-30T11:22:25-05:00

still, better to improve EVERY level than 1 in the fifteen... it just feels you ain't getting any better. Not to mention 80% of those new talents are pure #$%^ noone will take, and the rest are IN THE SAME TIER, so you can only have 1 anyway. I guess whole idea of talents nowadays is just for PvP variety and won't affect PvE at all (except like 1 talent per class that will be MANDATORY again for surviving raids).

But as you can now swap talents on the fly with the help of an item, it's not as huge deal as everyone is trying to make it out to be. And I feel perfectly fine in leveling.

Comment by Zgugl

on 2012-08-30T14:10:52-05:00

They nerfed gold drop in BWL and Naxx.Sucks.

Comment by f0nZi3

on 2012-08-30T15:11:37-05:00

Totally a retarded move to completely remove head enchants!

You wanna give shoulder enchants to scribes? Fine (though I still don't understand why that wouldn't have gone to, oh I don't know.... AN ENCHANTER!). .

a stupid and uninformed point to make, Scribes could always make shoulder enchants for themselves (bop) since their conception (they were better/cheaper than faction purchased enchants for shoulders). LW got the same deal with pant enchants.

The mats required are different for these two enchants compared to the mats for enchanting (this also helps lesson economic and individual dependance on the already heavily demanded and supplied enchanting mats; to the least it avoids even more dependance on enchanting mats to tune your char and thats only a good thing)

Lorewise, shoulder enchants are only called shoulder enchants for the convenience. Its actually a shoulder inscription. You're putting runes on your shoulders to empower them. Same reason we talk about pant enchants but its really pant reinforcement from leather working. You're reinforcing your pants with stronger or magical material.

So really, its a non-issue that enchanters dont get shoulder scribing and its plainly obvious that scribes, who have always been able to make shoulder enchants, should be able to make shoulder enchants for everyone (which is really how it should have been).

If they decide to bring head slots back, it should go to scribes.

Thanks for insult and the overly detailed explanation as to why scribes should have Shoulder Inscriptions when the point of my post was the removal of head "enchants". Good job tunneling on one small piece of the post. /sarcasm

And by your logic above, head "enchants" shouldn't go to scribes, they should go to Alchemists since all head "enchants" are Arcanum's. (Who's uninformed now?)

Comment by Adamsm

on 2012-08-30T15:19:11-05:00

Have to ask f0nZ13; were you a tank during BC? Because that was the absolute worst head enchant in the entire game to attempt to get: No one, and I mean absolutely no one, wanted to run Heroic Black Morass or Old Hillsbrad, hell, barely anyone wanted to run regular BM for Keepers of Time rep. So the removal of the Head Enchants is one I am whole heartily on the side of, especially since there is no tabards for MoP dungeons, so rep is only done through questing and dailies. And it was still a pain to go with a specific faction; all of the expansions have had their issues in regards to it: BC with people hating Keepers and Shattered Halls so good luck trying to get HH/Thrallmaar rep back then, Wrath with having to do all of the quests to unlock the Shadow Vault for the Ebon Blade and Cata with the Earthen Ring tabard.

Comment by f0nZi3

on 2012-08-30T15:47:37-05:00

Have to ask f0nZ13; were you a tank during BC? Because that was the absolute worst head enchant in the entire game to attempt to get: No one, and I mean absolutely no one, wanted to run Heroic Black Morass or Old Hillsbrad, hell, barely anyone wanted to run regular BM for Keepers of Time rep. So the removal of the Head Enchants is one I am whole heartily on the side of, especially since there is no tabards for MoP dungeons, so rep is only done through questing and dailies. And it was still a pain to go with a specific faction; all of the expansions have had their issues in regards to it: BC with people hating Keepers and Shattered Halls so good luck trying to get HH/Thrallmaar rep back then, Wrath with having to do all of the quests to unlock the Shadow Vault for the Ebon Blade and Cata with the Earthen Ring tabard.

No I was not a tank in BC. I was not around during BC but I have heard of the pains related to those 2 heroic dungeons.

Well, I look at it this way, people are going to grind rep for MoP factions through dailies (and questing) anyway. That's how we are going to be able to buy gear from them (using Valor Points initially). So, their excuse that grinding rep is too much for the "casual" player just doesn't hold weight since we are ALL going to have to grind rep to get geared anyway (initially). Since they made head enchants BoA in Cata, I don't see why that could not have simply been carried over to MoP. I mean, once you have your main toon geared and reps to exalted, how freakin' hard is it to have that toon buy the head enchant and mail it to your alt(s)?

Guess that was deemed as "too hard" for the casual player. :-P

Comment by Adamsm

on 2012-08-30T16:00:04-05:00

No, the complaint is about grinding that one specific faction for the head enchant first; I know I've done that a lot in my years of playing WoW and it's nice to know that from here on out I can grind with the rep I want, and not the one that provides a required enchant that 'needs' to be done first.

Edit: Same reason they made shoulder enchants a craftable thing: I know a large number of players who hated Deepholme and being 'forced' to grind out the quests in the zone, since the Therazane rep only opens up when you've started on the Third Pillar fragment.

Comment by f0nZi3

on 2012-08-30T16:13:57-05:00

Meh... there's gear from each faction that I will want (and I suspect the majority will too) so grinding out dailies is no big thing to me... I mean I'll be doing them all anyway. But okay, yeah... I did hate doing Deepholme on each toon for a shoulder enchant that was not BoA. And really, I'm cool with scribes making shoulder enchants (I have every profession maxed anyways, and plan to max them out in MoP as well - so no biggie to me). I just can't buy their excuse for removing the head enchant from the game completely. Since they gave the shoulder "inscription" to Scribes, they should have just given the head "arcanum's" to an Alchemist.

My disagreement is really in its removal entirely, regardless of the excuse(s) Blizzard gives for the reasons since they really don't make any sense.

Comment by wowilovehead

on 2012-08-30T18:35:44-05:00

One MAJOR change that I see no mention of is that they removed the "Have Group Will Travel" Guild perk, which changes gameplay SIGNIFICANTLY.

Comment by Adamsm

on 2012-08-30T18:41:58-05:00

One MAJOR change that I see no mention of is that they removed the "Have Group Will Travel" Guild perk, which changes gameplay SIGNIFICANTLY.

Not that significantly; just pick up some warlocks and use them as they are meant to be used.

Comment by Magician22773

on 2012-08-30T19:55:56-05:00

One MAJOR change that I see no mention of is that they removed the "Have Group Will Travel" Guild perk, which changes gameplay SIGNIFICANTLY.

I would love it if even just for 1 week, or even just a day (April Fools maybe?), Blizz would return things like travel back to original Vanilla standards.

If you think not being able to click one button and summon your group is "SIGNIFICANT", then I would hate to see how you handled having to walk, or at BEST, fly at 100% speed...to everywhere. No portals, no instant group summons, flight paths spread out (and you had to discover them to use them)...no teleport to dungeons.....you get the idea.

<steps off soap-box>

This is not a significant change. There are plenty of ways to get a group to a raid...warlocks, flight paths, summoning stones, or fly your butt there yourself.

Comment by WakemanCK

on 2012-08-30T23:44:51-05:00

The ranged weapon slot has been removed from the game; hunters now equip their ranged weapon in the main hand weapon slot.

No more "hunter weapon!" joke. :P

At least there will be less drama with weapon loots against other classes. Haha.

Comment by Thandion

on 2012-08-31T07:30:04-05:00

One MAJOR change that I see no mention of is that they removed the "Have Group Will Travel" Guild perk, which changes gameplay SIGNIFICANTLY.

I would love it if even just for 1 week, or even just a day (April Fools maybe?), Blizz would return things like travel back to original Vanilla standards.

If you think not being able to click one button and summon your group is "SIGNIFICANT", then I would hate to see how you handled having to walk, or at BEST, fly at 100% speed...to everywhere. No portals, no instant group summons, flight paths spread out (and you had to discover them to use them)...no teleport to dungeons.....you get the idea.

<steps off soap-box>

This is not a significant change. There are plenty of ways to get a group to a raid...warlocks, flight paths, summoning stones, or fly your butt there yourself.

Out of curiosity, have they offered any explanation as to why it was removed?

Comment by Adamsm

on 2012-08-31T11:22:56-05:00

One MAJOR change that I see no mention of is that they removed the "Have Group Will Travel" Guild perk, which changes gameplay SIGNIFICANTLY.

I would love it if even just for 1 week, or even just a day (April Fools maybe?), Blizz would return things like travel back to original Vanilla standards.

If you think not being able to click one button and summon your group is "SIGNIFICANT", then I would hate to see how you handled having to walk, or at BEST, fly at 100% speed...to everywhere. No portals, no instant group summons, flight paths spread out (and you had to discover them to use them)...no teleport to dungeons.....you get the idea.

<steps off soap-box>

This is not a significant change. There are plenty of ways to get a group to a raid...warlocks, flight paths, summoning stones, or fly your butt there yourself.

Out of curiosity, have they offered any explanation as to why it was removed?

To get people out and about in the world, and because it was being 'exploited' by guilds for city destructions.

Comment by Tenjen

on 2012-08-31T15:36:39-05:00

and to avoid skipping content in MoP

Comment by CrimsonPut

on 2012-09-01T03:56:37-05:00

and to avoid skipping content in MoP

You'd think if they wanted people to deal with all the content, they'd make content worth dealing with...

Comment by Adamsm

on 2012-09-01T11:48:23-05:00

and to avoid skipping content in MoP

You'd think if they wanted people to deal with all the content, they'd make content worth dealing with...

Which they did in MoP; hence why they don't want people skipping around it with Have Group, Will Travel.